Bakel gro-Dursa
' , formerly '''gro-Grulmog, was an Orc Chieftain and warrior. He was a former member of The Oshcrun Tribe, the son of it's Chief Grulmog and his Heart-Wife Dursa. However, after humiliating himself and his family he was exiled and disowned by him. Since then he has fought his way to the position of Chief of the Akul Khazak stronghold in northeastern Skyrim. He was killed by Tiskr Rjaakasig during Companion raid against his stronghold. History Backstory Bakel is the eldest son of Chief Grulmog of the Oshcrun Tribe by his Heart-wife, Dursa. From a young age he believed himself the next successor to the tribe, training to one day kill his father. Though in his youth he was never exceptional by Oshcrun standards. Growing up he wasn't particularly close with his half-siblings, though he did call his little sister Lamush by the pet-name "Lammy". His relationship with his younger brother Kurdan gro-Grulmog, however, began to sour considerably when the young Orc began to outshine him in almost every way despite him being several years younger. This caused many in the clan to begin looking to Kurdan as the future chieftain after Grulmog, not Bakel. This greatly angered Bakel and he began to recklessly try his best to outdo his brother. This culminated in him choosing to attempt the Ritual of Blood at 16. In order to not only outdo his brother, but his father as well, Bakel chose to complete to ritual by killing his father. He though this smart, as it would not only show his superiority to Kurdan but also secure his place as the new chief of the Oshcrun. In his naivety, he underestimated his father and overestimated himself. Grulmog did not go easy on him and dealt a crushing defeat to his eldest son in front of the whole tribe. An injured Bakel begged for his life cowardly which humiliated not only himself, but his parents and ancestors as well. Furious, Grulmog didn't even grant him an honorable death. Instead he immediately exiled his son from the tribe and disinherited him. Bakel wandered the Reach for a while, but after word of his humiliation got around to the other Reach strongholds, he left the Druadach Mountains. During his exile he survived on his own in the wilderness, hunting and raiding on his own. He performed tasks for some strongholds, but grew ever more envious of their position as he grew older. This came to a head when he arrived at the Akul Khazak stronghold in northeastern Skyrim in 1E 133, where the slothful Chief Muluur reigned. Bakel thought him completely unworthy of being a chief. Thus he challenged Muluur for the right to rule his tribe. Even though he was an outsider, Bakel had that right according to the Code of Malacath. Muluur was forced to accept or step down as chief. Even though he was slothful, Muluur wasn't a coward. He dueled Bakel. At this time Bakel was much stronger than his foolish younger self. Years of living on his own had molded him into a fearsome warrior. He bisected Chief Muluur during their duel. As was tradition, Bakel ordered the stronghold residents to submit to him. Some of the more courageous warriors defied him and challenged the intruder to a duel. Bakel killed every last one of them. With everyone submitting to him, Bakel became the Chieftain of the Norakul Tribe. His first act as Chief was to show mercy to Muluur's children that submitted to him. However, Muluur's eldest son and his mother, Muluur's Forge-Wife, were among the dissenters. Muluur's other two wifes submitted to Bakel. He took both of them as well as Muluur's daughter by his Forge-Wife as his own wives. Unbeknownst to Bakel, his new wives were plotting against him. His Hunts-Wife, Uloog was trying to sneak her children by Muluur to safety so that they could go to another stronghold and ally with them to overthrow Bakel. It would've worked, had Muluur's younger son Boruus not challenged the new chief to a duel. Boruus was 14 then, not anywhere near ready to overpower Bakel, but he was recklessly driven by revenge for his murdered family. Bakel went easy on Boruus at first, but when the young Orc came close to injuring him Bakel dropped all sense of mercy and put Boruus in his place. A well placed attack to Boruus' face left him on the brink of death and permanently disfigured, but his mother Mornz - now Heart-Wife to Bakel - begged for his life and swore to serve him faithfully if he spared her son. Bakel accepted when she hinted that the other wives were plotting against him. Mornz spilled the details of the plot, being forced to follow her oath even if she didn't want to as Uloog was her sister. Upon learning Uloog's plan, Bakel immediately imprisoned her and her children before they could escape through a secret sully gate in the eastern part of the stronghold. Uloog begged for the life of her children, but Bakel was out of mercy for traitors. He skinned her and her children alive. After this betrayal, Bakel was hesitant to remarry as he now saw enemies among those that had submitted to him initially. With Mornz' help, he spied on everyone in the stronghold and made sure to brutally kill those that showed signs of betrayal. A year later, Mornz gave birth to a daughter. Bakel named her Durzha after his mother. After that birth, every other pregnancy by his two wives ended in miscarriages. He suspected betrayal and when Mornz caught Murok gra-Muluur, Bakel's Forge-Wife and one of the last two children of Muluur, trying to kill Durzha she raged against Murok and alerted Bakel to her treachery. Bakel restrained Murok by breaking her limbs and interrogated her. She admitted to having used poison to cause the miscarriages and for that he gave her a slow painful death during the next week. Afterwards, he remained only with Mornz for the next few years until the forge-master's sister, Shaggol, came of age and he married her as Mornz had proven to become barren after the continued poisoning by Murok. By 1E 139, Boruus had grown up under the thumb of Bakel and was made into an obedient, rage-filled champion of the stronghold. Shagool also became pregnant and Bakel eagerly awaits a son. Despite her loyalty, Bakel still abuses Mornz, though after the birth of Durzha she has become ever more obedient to maintain the safety of her children. Ballad of the High King Bakel had decided to make a move, after having consolidated his rule over the Akul Khazak stronghold. He began to increase his people's raids into human lands, terrorizing the lands of southern Blekva in greater numbers. The Jarl of the hold put out a bounty on them, one that drew the Companions to intervene. Many of them set out to the hold to take on the Orcs. The humans proved ineffective against the Orcs. Not only did Bakel have access to a network of tunnels under Mount Sheave that had been built by the Norakul Tribe for generations, but the humans also appeared to be disorganized and not cooperating with each other. This came to a head when they went up on mass towards Mount Sheave. Bakel had his warriors use the tunnels to get around the human force and ambush them. The ambush was a disaster for the Companions. Two of their leaders were killed and almost a third of their forces were as well. The humans retreated to the village of Sílfrisin, but the Orcs followed them and attacked the village. The Companions pushed back their first assault and when the next one came, the Orcs found that the village had been mostly abandoned. They looted and torched the place, then tried to hunt down the last of the Companions. This resulted in the Jarl only increasing the bounty and attracting more humans to take on Bakel's Orcs. Bakel's attentionw as drawn away from the humans momentarily, when he received reports of a red-skinned Orc coming up Mount Sheave. Bakel was enraged that one of Oshcrun would dare came into his new domain. What fueled this rage was also fear, fear that he would be humiliated once more like his failed Ritual of Blood. He ordered his Orcs to watch this Oshcrun and should they find the stronghold, to deny them entry. Eventually the Oshcrun female made it to the gates of the stronghold. Bakel sent Boruus to get her to leave without revealing his identity to the chief's former tribesmen. Boruus tried, but the she-Orc proved determined to get into Akul Khazak. She invoked the Code of Malacath and demanded a duel with the stronghold's champion in order to be allowed unmolested entry. Boruus met the Oshcrun, Lamush, outside the stronghold for their duel. They exchanged numerous blows, but after a well placed strike she removed his helmet and left him with a nasty injury on his already disfigured face. Still, Boruus refused to surrender. Lamush was about to finish him off when Boruus' mother interrupted the duel and convinced the red orc to stand down. With the duel won, Lamush entered the stronghold. She headed straight for the chief's longhouse. The guards outside the stronghold stopped her entry on orders of the chief. She pressured them and confirmed that Bakel was their chieftain. Despite her threats, the guards were more scared of the ruthless chieftain than the red she-Orc. They got her to leave the longhouse courtyard. Everyone in the stronghold was trying to ignore her. Furious, she stormed back to the longhouse and yelled for Bakel to face her. Having received a direct challenge, Bakel could no longer hide from his past. He put on his armor, grabbed his cleaver and stormed out of the longhouse. The sight of Lamush's red skin made him hesitate, but after she needlessly taunted him he furiously accepted her challenge and swung at her with his large cleaver. They clashed and he was actually overpowering her. She was going to lose, so she told him the reason for her coming to find him: to tell him the fate of his mother. The news came as a shock to Bakel and he quickly lost the interest in their duel. His anger shifted from Lamush to their father, but it was overshadowed by the grief that he felt for his mother. Despite all this, he would not stop the fight unless Lamush retracted her challenge, essentially surrendering the duel. She agreed and the two stopped their fight before one of them was injured. Grieving for his mother, Bakel retreated to his longhouse and had his Heart-Wife serve him food and drink. Lamush came with him. He told Lamush of the threat of the Companions and how they had gathered to take him down. She agreed to stay and help him fight them off. While they feasted he introduced his half-sister to his family: his daughter and his wives. In his drunken state he acted aggressively towards Mornz and Durzha and no one stopped him. He cared for them, in his own way, but was bad and showing it and prone to hostility from his upbringing. After spending the night drinking, Bakel was awoken to the news that the Companions had set off on another expedition up the mountain. He ordered his men to get ready and sent a few patrols through the tunnels to deal with the humans. However, news later arrived that there were humans in the tunnels. Seeing the threat they posed, he gathered up a force of mighty warriors and went into the mining tunnels to stop the humans. He ordered the miners to seal off several of the tunnels to trap the humans, but before they could do so one human managed to make it to mine entrance. Bakel had his archers fire on the human, but the arrows did not bring him down. The human charged at them and Bakel went out to meet him in battle. The human surprised him when he spoke Orcish, but the distraction was not enough to beat the chief. He was relentless in the fight against the human, dealing two fatal wounds to his arm and torso, but the human would not die. Bakel was afraid of this human, looking into his eyes was like looking into the eyes of death itself. That fear made Bakel sloppy and the human cut his neck. However, before the axe could kill him, Bakel used his Oshcrun Standard to burn the human alive. That finally killed the human and his charred corpse fell to the ground. Bakel retreated to see the stronghold's shaman, leaving Boruus in charge of the mine while he got his neck wound healed. Lamush came with him and complemented his fighting skill. He told her to warn their father that he was coming to kill him. The old shaman, Mornz's mother, gave him a concoction that healed his wound. However, before they returned to the mining tunnels a lookout warned the chief that a large group of Companions was coming up the side of the mountain towards the stronghold. Bakel told Lamush to go warn Boruus and tell him to hurry up dealing with the humans in the tunnels while he gathered up the women in the stronghold and the archers to protect the Akul Khazak from the incoming Companions. He gathered up the able-fighting women at the courtyard and told them on the incoming threat. He then had them go to the smith's to arm themselves with as well as they could. Durzha sneaked her way to the smith's and tried to join the band of warrior women, but Bakel found her and sent her back to the longhouse with her mother. When the women were armed, he led them to the gates to await the human invaders. The Companions attacked and were pelted by arrows as they made for the gates. They protected themselves with their shields and hacked away at the gates, eventually breaking through and swarming into the stronghold. Bakel and the female Orcs met them by the gates and tried to hold them off. The women were often used as fighters when the men were unavailable. They were nearly as strong and well trained as the men due to the manual labor they had to handle in the stronghold. However, the Companions had a lot more numbers and experience with warfare so they managed to push the Orcs back and spread throughout the stronghold. Bakel tried to contain the humans, but his warriors had been scattered. He encountered one of the human captains and dueled him, killing two of his men and decapitating the Companion. Afterwards he rallied the scattered Orc defenders to his longhouse's courtyard for a final battle against the humans, whom were now enraged by the death of one of their leaders. The battle grew more in favor of the Orcs, as Chief Bakel's undefeated slaughter of numerous humans inspired the Orcs and put fear into the Companions. Another of the captains challenged Bakel along with his huntmaster, though the Orc was able to fight off both of them at once. He waited for Boruus and the reinforcements from the mines to come, but none came. Instead more Companions had come from the mines, meaning that Boruus and his warriors were dead. Bakel heavily injured the captain and fatally burned his huntmaster. He would have killed the captain if not for a sight he didn't expect to see. It was the human that he had killed in the mines. He was cutting his way past the Orcish line and heading directly to the chief. It was impossible, but his eyes did not deceive him, it was real. Bakel regained his senses, but the distraction was enough time for the captain to move out of the way of the attack. He tried to finish the captain off quickly, but his desperation made him sloppy and he was unable to kill him before undying warrior reached him. A mage joined the battle against the chief, as did a Tongue. Despite being outnumbered, the Orc chief continued to hold his own against all of them. They had to chip away at him piece by piece to wear him down. A healer and a rogue joined the skirmish against Bakel. By then the Tongue had used his shouts to weaken his armor and the mage had blasted him with lightning, while the warriors stuck at him numerous times. Bakel was unable to kill any of his opponents with the healer there. Ultimately, the Tongue cut Bakel's throat at killed him. Legacy With Bakel dead, the battle was lost. The Companions burned down the Akul Khazak stronghold and killed most of its inhabitants. A small amount of children and adults were able to escape through a sully gate with the protection of Lamush gra-Beshkar, among them Bakel's wives and daughter. They traveled to the Marzgior stronghold and sought refuge with the chief there. Bakel's bloodline continued through his children. His daughter would join the Oshcrun Tribe and complete the Ritual of Blood. His son would create a new stronghold for the Norakul Tribe. Personality In his youth, Bakel was an entitled and cocky individual. He believed himself destined to be the next Oshcrun chief and while his skills were nothing expectacular, they were good enough that the rest of the tribe believed the same. That only changed when Kurdan came of fighting age and overshadowed his older half-brother. This shattered Bakel's ambitions and made him a bitter, envious and reckless individual. After his humiliation at the hands of his own father, Bakel's bitterness turned into burning anger. Anger towards his father, his brother, his former tribe and most importantly anger at his own foolishness. This self-loathing fueled him during his exile, making him become a cruel and ruthless warrior with little regard for others' lives. After he became the chief of the Norakul Tribe, he displayed the true extent of his cruelty as he brutally murdered those that rebelled against his usurpation of Chief Muluur's reign. His only act was mercy was towards Muluur's children, but that was short-lived after the betrayal of his wives was discovered. He answered that betrayal with excruciatingly painful deaths. After this everyone in the stronghold feared the already physically imposing Orc brute and Bakel reveled in that fear. These betrayals made Bakel quite paranoid, which in turn made him close himself off more from his fellow Orcs and fueled his negative traits further. Bakel never showed any love to even his most faithful wife, Mornz. He was overly aggressive with her and beats her on a whim frequently. Though in some twisted way, he viewed this as affection. The closest thing to actual love that he shows is with his daughter Durzha, whom overprotectively smothers after losing all his other children to Murok's poisons. Statistics *Attributes: Strength, Endurance *Major Skills: Master Two-Handed (Blade), Master Heavy Armor, Expert Block, Expert Atheletics, Adept Speechcraft. *Minor Skills: Survival, Hand-to-Hand, Throwing *Abilities: Berserker Strike, Cleave, Executioner, Momentum, Stampede, Dizzying Swing *Powers: Stalwart, Berserker Rage, Oshcrun Standard. *Equipment: Orcish armour, Orcish cleaver. Trivia *Bakel is missing part of his nose, which he lost during his failed attempt at the Ritual of Blood against his father. *Akul Khazak means "Snow Peak" in Old Orcish. *Norakul combines the Orcish words for "Death" and "Snow". Norakul has the combined meaning of "Death by Snow" or "Frostbite" in Orcish. Category:Characters Category:Males Category:Chiefs Category:The Oshcrun Tribe Category:Warriors Category:Orsimer Category:Deceased